Wednesday, August 22, 2012

KOREA BANS FIXERS

While the Korean BA have banned their shuttlers, as seen by the story below, there is silence from China and Indonesia.

One other way to look at this issue is if it was a kind of racial profiling as it only involved Asian badminton players.

The
recommended penalties on Korean badminton players and coaches involved
in a match-throwing scandal at the London Olympics were reduced
Wednesday, a day after the players appealed the earlier ruling.

The Korea Badminton Association said the four female players -- Jung
Kyung-eun, Kim Ha-na, Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung -- will be suspended
from domestic and international play for six months, down from the two
years recommended last week by its disciplinary committee.

The national team head coach Sung Han-kook and assistant Kim Moon-soo
have been suspended for two years. Earlier, the disciplinary committee
handed down lifetime bans on both.

The penalties were finalized at the association's board meeting.

Jung and Kim Ha-na formed one women's doubles team, and Ha and Kim
Min-jung were the other doubles pair at the London Games. The four,
along with a Chinese pair and an Indonesian team, were disqualified from
the Olympics after deliberately hitting serves into the net and making
other unforced errors, in apparent attempts to purposely lose group
stage matches and manipulate knockout stage draws.

Jung and Kim beat Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China in straight sets in
their group match. The top-seeded Chinese team appeared to be making
mistakes on purpose to avoid the No. 2-seeded Chinese tandem, Tian Qing
and Zhao Yunlei, until the final. They received a warning from a
referee.

In the ensuing doubles match, Ha and Kim defeated Greysia Polii and
Meiliana Jauhari of Indonesia in three sets, but not before also
receiving a warning for deliberately losing points and getting booed off
the court. They were accused of trying to avoid facing Wang and Yu in
the quarters.

For the first time in Olympics, a combination of a round-robin group
stage and a knockout phase was introduced. Sixteen doubles teams were
paired into four groups of four, with the top two teams from each group
progressing to the quarters. Critics of the format said it could be
vulnerable to attempts to manipulate results to set up easier matches in
the knockout stage.

Sung and other officials also blamed the Chinese players for forcing the
hands of Korean players and making them do the same to avoid tough
opponents early.

The Korean badminton governing body handed out the stiff penalties under
pressure from the Korean Olympic Committee, which had vowed to take
stern measures against match-throwing attempts in all sports. The
penalties were soon met with public disapproval, however, for they would
essentially end the careers of coaches and players who have made their
share of contributions to badminton.

Making her appeal, one of the players claimed she only followed her head
coach's orders and said, "I don't understand why we have to be
penalized so severely."

In London, Korea earned one bronze medal in badminton for its worst Olympic performance ever. (Yonhap)